There are intelligence indications and warnings that President Trump’s “troop surge” in Afghanistan may also include the deployment of U.S. special warfare troops to the Indian side of the Chinese border. Currently, Indian and Chinese troops are facing off in a dangerous game of brinkmanship in three regions of the Himalayan range: the tri-border Dokalam Pass between China, the Indian state of Sikkim, and Bhutan; the Lipulekh Pass between the Indian state of Uttarakhand, Nepal, and China; and the Pangong Lake area of Ladakh in the territory of Kashmir, sovereignty over which is disputed between India, China, and Pakistan. The Pangong Lake stand-off resulted in a rock throwing spree between Chinese and Indian border troops last week. Continue reading →
The Trump administration and its spokespeople have dusted off many sordid relics of America’s past and now colonialism can be added to the Trump “rap sheet.” Not content with calling for the repeal of the 17th Amendment, which would abolish the direct election of U.S. senators, and dabbling in Jim Crow policies with a regressive civil rights policy, the Trump administration nominated as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas San Diego businessman and early Trump supporter Doug Manchester. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Manchester called the independent Commonwealth of the Bahamas a U.S. protectorate. On July 10 of this year, the Bahamas celebrated 44 years of independence. Continue reading →
An investigation of President Trump’s current and past business dealings has revealed that the real estate tycoon has effectively served as a syndicate “Godfather” for some three decades. In 2009, when Ivanka Trump married Jared Kushner, the scion of the Kushner real estate family, the marriage was more of a business merger between the Trump and Kushner business empires. The title of “Godfather” of the sprawling Trump-Kushner real estate empire fell to Donald Trump with Kushner Companies founder Charles Kushner, the father of Jared, racking up a federal criminal record for illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering, and Jared taking over the reins of the firm. Continue reading →
Justice Department Special counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in Washington, DC that could be looking into Donald Trump’s complicated but suspicious financing of his businesses, as well as his presidential campaign. The U.S. Senate has recognized the gravity of the grand jury probe of Trump and his campaign and White House advisers by maintaining the body in “pro forma” session throughout the August recess. The move prevents Trump from firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and replacing him with a recess appointee who could fire Mueller. Continue reading →
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has appointed as a 16th investigator on his team a former federal prosecutor in Brooklyn who helped prosecute a number of gangsters who also invested in properties owned by Donald Trump. Continue reading →
The US Department of Defense is fond of issuing reports, many of which contain a massive amount of Pentagon jargon and gobbledygook terms. But, one recent report, while not lacking in typical gibberish, contains one clear and unambiguous message. The neoconservative “New American Century” pet project, which saw the United States engage in quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as an unending “global war on terror,” is dead and buried. Continue reading →
In a July 19 audio-taped interview with three reporters from The New York Times, a paper that has been disparaged by strongman President Donald Trump as a failing business reporting “fake news,” Trump had harsh words for the entire upper echelon of the Department of Justice. Trump lambasted Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the “Russia probe” and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for being a secret Democrat from “Baltimore.” Trump also attacked Special Counsel Robert Mueller, former FBI director James Comey, and acting FBI director Andrew McCabe. Trump made it clear that he would have not chosen Sessions as his Attorney General had he known he would recuse himself from Russian investigatory matters. Continue reading →
Ever since the dawn of modern telecommunications, the American public has been guaranteed by law certain inalienable rights. The law that established the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Communications Act of 1934, enshrined for all Americans the principle of universal access to communications services. Subsequent laws have expanded universal access from telephones to other services, such as high-speed Internet. There is a particular right of universal access to communications for those living in rural and insular areas, and low-income Americans. The other FCC law that guaranteed Americans the right of access to the communications conduits of the public commons, in this case, the public airwaves, was the Fairness Doctrine of 1949. The doctrine required holders of public broadcast licenses to provide honest, equitable, and balanced views of public importance. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan abolished the Fairness Doctrine in order to please the wealthy GOP donors who owned various media conglomerates. Continue reading →
The right-wing Christian-owned store chain Hobby Lobby has settled a federal case that saw the Oklahoma City-based crafts retailer fined $3 million for illegally importing stolen artifacts from Iraq for “the Museum of the Bible” the store’s owner, Steve Green, is building near the National Mall in Washington, DC. Oddly, the title of the civil asset forfeiture case, brought in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of New York, does not mention the 600-store Hobby Lobby chain or Green as the major culprits. Had the case been criminal, as it should have been since Hobby Lobby violated a 1990 law on trafficking of Iraq, the case would have been United States of America v. Hobby Lobby, Inc. Continue reading →
U.S. strongman Donald Trump in a nepotistic fashion has granted his son-in-law Jared Kushner special diplomatic envoy portfolios to deal with the Middle East, China, Canada, and Mexico. Kushner, who is 36 and has no international experience, except for acting as a virtual embedded agent for Israel and Binyamin Netanyahu in the United States, recently warned Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to understand his place after the normally soft-spoken Tillerson blew up at a White House meeting with chief of staff Reince Priebus, Kushner, and their aides. Continue reading →
A powerful neocon cell is calling U.S. foreign policy shots in the Trump White House. Neocon describes those who put the interests of Israel ahead of those of the United States. Continue reading →
U.S. Navy sources report to WMR that the Navy is heading into familiar cover-up mode in the official investigation of the collision of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) with the ACX Crystal, a Philippines-flagged container ship manned by a Filipino crew of 20. The collision, which killed seven U.S. Navy sailors who drowned in a flooded below-water line berthing compartment, took place near Japan’s Izu Peninsula on June 17 at 2:20 a.m. local time. The Crystal was under charter to a Japanese firm, Nippon Yusen KK (NYK), and was en route from Nagoya to Tokyo. The Crystal’s registration holder is Sinbanali Shipping, Inc. based in Manila, and its actual owner is Dainichi-Invest Corporation of Kobe, Japan. Continue reading →
Ever since the end of World War II, the United States, rightly or wrongly, but most of the time wrongly, has fancied itself as the “world’s policeman.” Even a disastrous and costly military intervention in Southeast Asia did not deter the United States from acting as the chief arbiter of what governments were “in” and which were “out” as evidenced by the Central Intelligence Agency interloping in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Angola, Haiti, and Colombia. Two military interventions in Iraq and a U.S.-led military campaign directed against Yugoslavia were not enough to pry the United States from its self-appointed role as the chief “global cop.” In fact, American neoconservatives continued to fanaticize about the United States leading the world into a post-Cold War “new American century.” Continue reading →
Arising from a combination of Donald Trump’s tweets and statements about subjects from Qatar to Taiwan and NATO to Palestine, old border disputes and diplomatic rivalries are beginning to flare up. The Trump administration also appears to be unwilling to fill a number of vacancies in the State Department, a development that has added to a de facto American hands-off approach to many simmering international disputes. Continue reading →
While the West’s corporate media were fixated on NATO adding tiny Montenegro to its membership roster, the Chinese- and Russian-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) added India and Pakistan as full members. The flags of India and Pakistan were raised at SCO headquarters in Beijing, following the June 8–9 SCO Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan. Continue reading →
Politicizing disasters: it’s an old Republican tactic
Posted on August 30, 2017 by Wayne Madsen
The modern Republican Party can always be counted upon to inject its brand of racist politics into any natural disaster. Hurricane Harvey, which has brought about a 1,000-year epic flood in northeast Texas, is no exception. No sooner had pictures emerged from the Houston area of flooded homes and stranded residents on rooftops, the GOP spin machine, egged on by conspiracy hate monger websites, the most prominent being located in Texas, began laying blame on elected and appointed Democratic officials. Continue reading →